A brand new Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition (5e) marketing campaign setting has launched by Kickstarter that goals to convey the aesthetics of Studio Ghibli, The Legend of Zelda, and Adventure Time into the world of tabletop role-playing. Obojima brings a chilled, healthful milieu to a recreation that more and more appeals to demographics in dire want of it.

“Growing up, Ocarina of Time and Princess Mononoke completely obsessed me,” Jeremiah Crofton, artistic director and founding father of 1985 Games, tells WIRED. “None of that childlike wonder has faded with time, so when 1985 Games started thinking about creating its own D&D campaign setting, tying all these influences into what would eventually become Obojima came naturally.”

The wild and great world of Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition dietary supplements is a deep dive of tabletop nostalgia and memes, usually fascinating and provocative. Beyond the one-to-one re-creations of older D&D mechanics and energy fantasies, passionate homebrew creators work on the bleeding fringe of tabletop recreation improvement, dreaming up the way forward for how we think about and have interaction with dwelling narratives.

Obojima is a pleasant jewel in that trove.

A World Beyond the Tall Grass

D&D is changing into softer.

As the IRL world we develop into turns into more durable to make sense of, and the fiendish grimdark analogues that dominated science fiction and fantasy over the ’90s fade from favor, it’s simple to see that nerd cultures have gotten kinder and extra aware. Entire tracts of grotesque Forgotten Realms lore has been recognized by Wizards of the Coast as incompatible with modern tastes.

“The average person faces their own unique set of struggles and obstacles every week,” Crofton muses. “Throw in a few soul-crushing news items and something hateful online and you can imagine how an immersive character fantasy like D&D becomes an outlet for escape from that energy.”

Today, the found-family trope has its foot on the neck of tabletop role-play podcasts—the de facto canonization of how tabletop play is meant to be—and it’s getting harder for developers to find a place for evil alignments. It’s as if the zeitgeist of millennial and Gen-Z thought has manifested nicer tales as a collective psychological self-defense to their circumstances. These days your common serial atrocity marketing campaign about how, deep down, everyone seems to be deeply terrible and it is naive to assume in any other case simply doesn’t learn as profoundly because it did in 1992.

“RPGs can be pretty dark in tone,” Crofton says. “I think I’ve seen too many grimdark, hyper-realistic fantasy games out there, even today, which is why I think we’re finding success. People seem to be excited to see more playful, lighthearted content, and there’s just not much out there in these circles.”

Why Obojima Is Boldly Different

Obojima permits a extra cozy, fulfilling story that makes room for whimsy whereas juggling the form of enriching fantastical awe that Dungeons and Dragons all the time aimed to encourage.